


the tattered, the torn

by thisbluespirit



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: 500 prompts, Community: genprompt_bingo, Community: hc_bingo, Gen, Post-Gauda Prime, Shipwrecks, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-17 11:54:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29471277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisbluespirit/pseuds/thisbluespirit
Summary: Vila is washed up on a distant shore.
Comments: 16
Kudos: 16
Collections: Gen Prompt Bingo Round 18, Hurt/Comfort Bingo - Round 11





	the tattered, the torn

**Author's Note:**

> Written for jaxomsride2 in for the 500 prompts meme, Prompt #491: the tattered, the torn - Vila Restal. Also written for Hurt/Comfort Bingo square "Shipwrecked" and genprompt_bingo square "The north wind doth blow."

A galaxy is a big place. Plenty of options for running and hiding, like any sensible person would have done at the start. Not that Vila’s ever been exactly sensible, if he’s honest. But then he’s rarely been all that honest, either.

This place seemed all right as bolt holes went. Low tech planet, gone to seed around the edges, heading right back to second or first calendar. Not the sort of place the Federation has any interest in, as long as it keeps up its grain exports. Even then, the big interplanetary supply farms are on the other continent. 

This one’s full of short grey mountains and tiny, murky seas with small settlements eking out a living on scarce patches of decent land. In between, they drink a lot to get them through the hardest bits of the year. There are a few scattered towns, where villagers can sell their wares and buy luxury goods and a talented thief can nick a few comforts when he chooses. Definitely not Supreme Commander Servalan’s sort of place. If it weren’t for that cheering thought, it wouldn’t exactly be Vila’s sort of place either. But they’ll pay for a passing conjurer and teller of tales and they’re easy to steal from. Not so bad, all told.

Except now he’s wound up on board this archaic model of transport that travels on water and is made partly of scavenged space plastics and metals left by the First Founders but mostly of wood, which Vila doesn’t find reassuring. Is it supposed to creak and groan with every other shift in the wind and waves? Even Scorpio didn’t sound as if it was going to fall apart all the time. At least, not until it did.

He’s always thought space travel was the scariest sort. Now he’s finding out how unnerving it is to be in a worryingly small vessel on board a hostile body of water. He thinks about freezing or drowning or winding up speared by any number of bits of wood that seem alarmingly likely to break or fall. The ship keeps going up and down in a way that’s playing havoc with his stomach, and it’s dark as hell out there even thought nightfall’s a couple hours away yet. 

The crew are worried, too. You can tell – all those brief, false smiles and hearty reassurances before they tell you to stay down below and batten the hatches. And when you do batten the hatches, you can hear them on the other side, counting the lifeboats.

Vila gave up on staying below half an hour ago. At the moment, drowning in a cramped hold seems like the least preferable of his current options. He hangs onto the rail as he parts with the last of his lunch – shame, it wasn’t half bad for a wonder – and tells himself it’ll be all right. It’s not a big sea, as seas go. And even if the worst comes to the worst, it’s pretty cold. He’ll probably go that way, or maybe the shock of hitting the water’ll finish him off before he even has to worry about drowning. And, after all, he’s outrun death longer than he expected. Maybe longer than he wanted.

He shakes that thought away, but still wonders if he’s like one of those cursed people from olden time stories, and the storm is his fault. Fate’s hunting him down and doesn’t care if it takes all the rest of the ship’s crew and passengers with him. Maybe he should ask to be thrown overboard and see if he gets picked up by an underwater elephant, or whatever the thing was. It doesn’t sound like fun, though, and he’s pretty sure there’s nothing bigger than the fish in this sea.

Then the roar of the storm and the waves sounds louder before it’s drowned out by the ship shrieking like a living being as it’s finally torn to pieces on the rocks. Then there’s yelling and crying out and falling – and then only the sea and scrabbling for pieces of wood to stay afloat.

Vila washes up on a cold, dark-sanded shore. There are others scattered around him; all battered bundles of sodden rags. Flotsam and jetsam, shivering and lost. It’s a bit much on the nose. He’d prefer less metaphorical adventures. How about a nice sunny beach instead? He should have gone for the tropics, even if there had been rumours about creatures that lived in the jungles down there. As long as they did drinks full of fruit and alcohol, it’d be fine by him.

He drags himself to his feet, clothes weighting him down, and checks out the company. His fellow survivors don’t look especially threatening. There’s one of the crew, her blue uniform torn but still recognisable; a kid coughing up water, and a couple of others standing about, scanning the beach for somebody they can’t find, probably never will. Everyone’s too shaken to take the lead.

Vila sighs. The thing is, he doesn’t really want to die. He certainly doesn’t want to freeze on a gritty beach. “Wood,” he says, and the rest start seeing him properly, the way he tried to avoid before. “That’s what we need. Get a fire going – dry out. Keep out any wild creatures.” Once they’re dry, they can sort out the next headache.

When people start lugging back wood from the clumps of trees close by, they turn to look at him. Now he’s got an audience. And Vila knows how to play an audience, so he straightens up. “Great. Nice work, everyone. And now –” he waves a hand – “for my first trick. Fire!”

The pile smokes and starts to burn, and he bows. (And all right, so he’s just lucky that small last gadget of Dayna’s wasn’t ruined by the sea – trust Dayna for that – but the art’s in the performance. That’s what sells it.)

Now they truly are looking at him. He never really has been sensible, has he?


End file.
